Charmides ambled down their small valley, and Satyrus could see him, gathering sticks by the dying light of the sun. Jubal went to help him. They had no slaves, no servants, and no hypaspists. They’d decided it on Rhodes.
‘Why, really?’ Anaxagoras asked.
‘The risk isn’t bad. And the truth is, there were two poisonings this winter at Tanais. Another try at Olbia – one of Eumeles’s own slaves. Stratokles told me to stay away from Heraklea.’
‘He would know,’ Anaxagoras said. Alone of Satyrus’s inner circle, Anaxagoras liked the Athenian.
Satyrus’s newly purchased chestnut mare snorted, and Satyrus rolled to his feet, dumping his wine from his horn cup as he stood.
‘Herakles,’ he said quietly.
He could see his mare, and she was tossing her head and pulling at her picket. She was new to him; he’d left all his good horses with his sister, to travel with the horse herd. But this was some kind of signal. Unfortunately, with a horse he didn’t know, it could mean anything from a pain in her gut to a desire for food to a fear of dogs or wolves.
‘Hush, girl,’ he said, walking towards her. He got a hand on her bridle and she froze, head up, lips off her teeth, breathing hard.
Bow.
He heard the voice as clearly as if the god stood with him at the edge of the firelight. His bow hung in his gorytos from a tree where his mare was picketed. He stepped to it – never question the god – and buckled the waist-belt as he crouched.
Anaxagoras was standing in the firelight.
‘Down,’ Satyrus said.
Anaxagoras dropped.
Satyrus had an arrow on his bow, the horn nock smoothly fitted on the string.
Something moved in the almost-dark.
As he raised his bow, Satyrus remembered that Apollodorus was out there.
Sloppy.
He went back to watching.
He heard Jubal and Charmides laughing.
Satyrus wasn’t sure whether he should call a warning or remain hidden. But as the waiting lengthened, his resolve weakened.
‘Alarm!’ he roared.
The results were spectacular.
Just the other side of the horses, a man rose to his feet with a bow. He was at full draw but by luck or fate, the tree that had held Satyrus’s gorytos was partially between them, and he paused, trying to make his shot count.
Anaxagoras rose from the rocks to Satyrus’s left. He was armed only with a rock, but his throw was sure.
The archer twisted to avoid the rock, which hit his shoulder as he loosed – his arrow went wide. Satyrus shot him in the side – the range was so short he could hardly miss – and the man’s attempt to dodge Anaxagoras revealed him from crotch to shoulders.
The next arrow came from well to Satyrus’s left – from beyond Anaxagoras, who was back behind his rocks – and it hit Satyrus’s bow case, penetrated the bronze and two layers of leather, cut an arrow in half, and punched into Satyrus’s thigh.
He got another arrow on his bow but he couldn’t even see the new archer. ‘Alarm!’ he bellowed.
He reached up for his javelin case, pulled out two hunting javelins, and threw them carefully – without exposing himself – towards the rocks where Anaxagoras was hiding.
He saw one of them picked up. Then he saw that there was another man right in among the horses. The last red glow of the sun threw confusing light, but something gleamed.
Satyrus felt hot and cold by turns, but the eudaimonia was on him, and he drew his next barbed point until the fletching touched his cheek, leaned out until he fell on his back, and shot through the legs of the horses. A horse thrashed, wrenching its picket pin from the ground … and a man screamed, shot through the leg just above his ankle.
Satyrus had to contort himself to get at another arrow. It took a long time, and what little light there was was fading. The downed man kept screaming.
Satyrus knew he had to sit up to have any more shots. And he knew that when he sat up, he’d be revealed to anyone above him on the hillside. He scraped along on his back, the gravel cutting into him, trying to get his shoulders behind the tree. Darkness was falling like a curtain – he could no longer see the next ridge, six stades away. Somewhere, he could hear sheep bells.
Now his back was on pine needles. He must be close to the tree.
Movement – way up the hillside – scrabbling and roaring, like a pack of wild dogs – and then the sound of falling rocks.
And closer to hand, a movement just beyond his tree.
The man he’d shot screamed again.
The arrow between his fingers felt wrong. Too heavy. But he didn’t dare move his eyes.
He sat up – the assassin in the bush turned and shot – he shot – there was a scream and his mare let out a long snarl and Anaxagoras’s spear flew across the horses and then there was silence.
As he fumbled for another arrow, Satyrus realised that the first scream had been his arrow. He’d shot a whistle-arrow.
Artemis must be laughing.
He heard moving, rolled against his tree cursing the growing pain in his left leg, and Anaxagoras appeared out of the dark, a second javelin in his fist.
‘I missed. Who are they?’ asked the musician.
‘Bandits? Who knows?’ Satyrus rubbed his thigh and cursed. There was a lot of blood. ‘I’m hit.’
The bushes moved twice in the next hour. The feeling gradually left Satyrus’s left leg; he was lying on it, and the pins and needles feeling told him to move, but he didn’t dare.
‘If they get the horses, we’re cooked,’ Satyrus whispered.
Anaxagoras bent down. ‘I’m going to get the arrow out.’
‘No, you aren’t.’ Satyrus was cold, and in pain, but his wits were sharp. ‘That takes both of us out.’
Long silence. The man with the arrow in his legs wasn’t screaming any more.
Satyrus took to watching his mare. She was cropping grass.
‘I think they’re gone,’ he said.
‘Jubal?’ called Anaxagoras.
‘Right here,’ he replied. He was down by the fire, where the weapons were.
‘Charmides?’ he called.
‘Here!’ came the younger voice. Also by the fire.
‘Apollodorus?’
Silence.
‘Apollodorus?’ Anaxagoras called.
‘Right here,’ said the marine. He emerged from the horses. Even in the dark he looked bad: blood flowing down his face, all the knuckles split on both hands.
Charmides went on watch, and Anaxagoras opened his leather bag and salved Apollodorus’s wounds – two long cuts on his arms – while Jubal washed the blood off him and oiled him.
Then Anaxagoras built up the fire while Jubal and Charmides went out into the dark beyond the horses to give them a zone of safety. They swept all the way around the camp and came up with three corpses: a man battered to death with a rock, a man with his throat slit and an arrow through both legs, and a man with an arrow through his side.
Apollodorus agreed with the count. ‘Bastard came at me while I was … busy,’ he said. ‘I heard the alarm shout – he cut me.’ He shook his head. ‘He was fucking strong.’ Shrugged, a figure of blood in the firelight. ‘I was stronger.’
Anaxagoras gave him more wine. ‘You, sir, will hurt like the devil in the morning. Don’t add a hangover. I have poppy …’
Apollodorus shook his head. ‘Had too much. Just like Satyrus.’
Anaxagoras threw two pine bows on the fire. Now it was too hot where Satyrus lay, and the clearing was as bright as day.
Anaxagoras made a clucking sound.
‘Poison,’ he said. ‘I fear.’
He had an odd little tool – a wicked-looking thing like a folding spoon. ‘This is going to hurt a great deal,’ he said. ‘This is an arrow spoon. I have to put it into the wound to extract the arrow, because it is barbed. And then I have to try and get the poison out. You understand?’
Satyrus looked at his friend. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Good,’ Anaxagoras said. ‘I’ve never actually done this before,’ he added, and those were the last words Satyrus heard.
Pain came, and he was gone.
Unconsciousness lasted only a few hours, and Satyrus regretted it because the next few days were amongst the most painful he’d ever experienced. He was in a fever, and he came and went from full consciousness, and he was hot and miserable, and despite all that, Apollodorus had taken command and was moving them – fast – across the valleys of western Asia, going due east on the Zeugma road.
A lifetime of riding left Satyrus capable of staying in the saddle even when fevered. But the experience was horrible – he had delusions, his wound was inflamed and jarred by every fourth step of the horse, and when they trotted, his leg felt as if it was being broken with every bump.
And the constant ministrations of his friends wore on him, day after day. He felt a burden. He
was
a burden.
But on the fourth day the fever broke, and he lay in his own sweat and was irritated by insects, and the fact that he could be irritated by insects was itself a source of joy.
Anaxagoras crouched by him with an oil lamp. He moved very quietly.
Satyrus sighed. ‘I’m awake,’ he said.
‘Ah!’ Anaxagoras said. ‘Fever?’
‘Not so much,’ Satyrus said. ‘Ares, I feel like horse dung.’
‘Philos, you
look
like horse dung, as well.’ Anaxagoras brought him a clay cup. ‘Eat all of this if you can get it down.’
‘Was I poisoned?’ Satyrus asked.
Anaxagoras shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I’m not a doctor, but you can’t attend a Temple of Apollo without getting some basic training in healing. Unfortunately, while I’ve watched doctors smell wounds and prescribe herbs for poisons I have no idea how to do either.’ He sat down. ‘The arrow smelled like shit … pardon me. Apollodorus says it might have been smeared in pig dung – that’s apparently a potent poison.’
‘Did I hear my name?’ Apollodorus asked.
‘Satyrus is better,’ Anaxagoras said.
Apollodorus grunted. ‘Then everyone should be allowed to sleep,’ he said.
The next day, Satyrus rode more easily, although trots were still brutal and the wound in his thigh gushed blood and pus when Anaxagoras pushed at it. ‘Not done yet,’ he said, shaking his head. He poured wine and honey into the wound.
That night, Apollodorus bought a heavy boar’s bristle brush from a farmer in the hills north of Zeugma who offered them shelter in his fine stone house. ‘Satyrus, we’re all worried by the pus in your wound.’
The fever was returning, and Satyrus nodded heavily.
‘I know a trick. A soldier’s trick.’ He was speaking slowly and clearly.
‘And?’ Satyrus asked.
Apollodorus held up the brush. ‘It’s going to hurt like Hades,’ he said.
Satyrus nodded. ‘Try,’ he said. He had little idea what they were doing.
Anaxagoras unwrapped the bandage, and the wound was red like Tyrian linen, with tendrils of infection running up almost to his groin and down his leg towards his knee.
‘We should take it off,’ Anaxagoras said. ‘But I don’t know how.’
Jubal rubbed his short beard. ‘He’ll die,’ he said. ‘Men need to be strong to lose a leg.’
Satyrus was scared by his leg. It didn’t look like part of him. It looked as if it had taken on an evil life of its own.
‘Let me try,’ said Apollodorus. ‘This is going to hurt like … well, give the king something to bite down on. Pour this bowl full of wine.’ He washed the brush in the wine, and then – remorselessly – he began to scrub the wound. He flayed the pus sores open, and scrubbed them, and the brush went right into the mouth of the wound and Satyrus vomited from the pain. Anaxagoras held his head.
Then he blacked out.
Then he resurfaced, to more pain. The bowl was black with crud from the wound – the smell of the pus was everywhere in the little farmhouse. Satyrus could see the farmer’s face – the ‘O’ of his shocked mouth.
‘Don’t scream,’ the god said. ‘Don’t scream. Heroes do not scream.’
Satyrus tried to smile at Herakles, whose body filled the bank of the stream. ‘Lord,’ he said. He wondered why he only saw his god when he was in pain.
‘The ability to withstand pain,’ Herakles said, ‘is a path.’
Satyrus could hear a lyre playing, the notes cascading like water down a waterfall.
‘Oh,’ said Herakles. ‘The musician. Well, he’s fair enough as a healer. Do well, boy. Be excellent.’
Satyrus saw that Anaxagoras was playing for him, as he had when Satyrus had marsh fever on Rhodes. But the music seemed to have colour and texture – the notes flowed across the room, dancing like butterflies on the late-spring air and often coming to light on his fresh-bandaged wound.
Anaxagoras’s face was anguished. Just like the man to blame himself.
Satyrus wished that he could see Miriam with the clarity he saw Anaxagoras. He wondered if he was dying. He didn’t feel like he was dying, and that alone worried him. He was sleepy, and his leg didn’t hurt. In fact, he couldn’t feel it.
They’d cut it off, after all.
He tried to sit up, to look. Amazing how difficult it could be to see your own leg. Surely, if they had cut it off, there’d be a sign.
Or it would hurt.
He rolled his hips back and forth, and there it was: a piercing pain from the wound. Satisfied, he rolled back, just as Apollodorus came and pinned his shoulders. ‘Rest,’ he said.
Satyrus was afraid that if he gave in to the sleep, he would die. He tried to see Miriam – he wished that they had made love. Yearned for her, and wished to tell her so, and no words would come out of his mouth.
Odd, to die like this in a cottage in Syria. Of all places.
And then he was gone.
Coenus cut his beard, chose his horses, packed his saddlebags, and took his two best spears off the wall where he’d been happy to leave them since his last hunt. His servant, Boras, fussed over food and his own mount, and then they rode to the shrine of Artemis on the hills above the Tanais River and offered sacrifice.
‘I’m pretty sure I won’t make it back,’ Coenus told his servant. In the morning, the arthritis was bad enough that he had to work on his hands to get them to open and close, and sleeping on the ground no longer held any attraction at all. He was sixty-four years old.